The Galaxy Note 9’s release date just leaked

With less than a month to go until Samsung unveils the Galaxy Note 9 in New York City, a new report tells us exactly when the phone is supposed to launch, and it’s just as soon as we expected. After the Galaxy S9 failed to outsell its predecessor and Samsung’s upcoming quarterly earnings report are about to highlight that, Samsung wants to have the Galaxy Note 9 in stores as soon as possible. Of course, another reason the phone is launching earlier than its predecessors is Apple.

Three new iPhones are going to be unveiled at some point in mid-September, all three of them packing the same design as the iPhone X. Moreover, the phones will be cheaper than last year’s flagship, which is one more reason for Samsung to worry. That’s why the Note 9 is launching early this year, with ETNews saying that Korean carriers will have the phone in stores on August 24th. That’s a little over two weeks after the Unpacked press conference Samsung is hosting in New York on August 9th.

The launch date seems to be final and it shouldn’t change unless there’s a problem, according to an unnamed senior official. A different carrier official said that preorders could start 10 days before the launch date on August 14th.

Assuming the dates are accurate, it’s likely that Samsung and its partners will start selling the Note 9 in the US and other international markets around the same time.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 8 on September 15th in Korea last year, only a few days before the iPhone 8 models hit stores. However, the iPhone X wasn’t released until November 3rd due to manufacturing delays. This year, Apple isn’t expected to delay its iPhone X successors, which would explain why Samsung is rushing the Note 9 to market.

This isn’t the first time a Galaxy Note phone launched that early. The Note 7 had an August 16th release date in 2016, while the Note 5 launched on August 20th a year before that.